


Break-It

by jenny_wren



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: #coulsonlives, Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-11
Updated: 2014-08-11
Packaged: 2018-02-12 16:22:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 856
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2116602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jenny_wren/pseuds/jenny_wren
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coulson is alive, it does the opposite of fix things</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break-It

Oh. Coulson was alive.

Clint stared. He was aware everybody else was reacting around him. Steve stayed silent but was projecting disapproval almost as loudly as Tony was shouting. Bruce had slipped into his, I’m staying calm breathing pattern, breath whistling through his teeth. Natasha had darted forward quick and fast, rattling off questions to check that this really was Coulson.

Coulson was alive.

Oh.

Coulson was alive and Clint hadn’t known. It had been a year and Coulson hadn’t told him. Coulson had obviously recovered some time ago, he was moving easily without the lag of recent injury holding him back. Coulson was just fine.

Clint hadn’t thought anything could hurt as bad as Coulson dying.

Coulson was alive.

It hurt. Every nerve he’d thought had grown numb flared into life. It was like Coulson was dying all over again. It was worse than Coulson dying because then Clint had memories to hoard close to his heart. 

Now each precious memory was dissolving into nothing in face of Coulson’s indifference. Clint had thought they were friends and now it was clear that they weren’t. Clint had thought he was important, that he mattered. He had basked in the warmth of Coulson’s regard and even after Coulson’s death he had huddled around the memory like a man pressing close to a fire while a blizzard roared around him. And if the memories had stung and burned sometimes, well, it was better than the cold.

None of it had been real.

The illusionary warmth vanished and he was left to face the storm alone.

He hadn’t mattered, he wasn’t important. He was just an idiot with a half-decent aim like he always had been. Useful but replaceable. Clint was a fool to think it had been any different.

Life rolled on without him. Coulson had rolled on without him.

 

Clint backed quietly out the room. He was frozen clear through and if anyone touched him he was going to shatter into a thousand pieces, hell if anyone spoke too loudly to him he was going to shatter.

Everything had gone fuzzy and distant like he was a puppeteer operating his own body from somewhere deep inside himself. The swoop of the descending elevator made him feel sick and he staggered on the steps down to main lobby because his feet and ankles were numb and awkward.

Outside was better. The hot air was a punch in face after the air-conditioned iciness of the tower. Clint took a gulp of humid air and felt sicker, fever sweat prickling along his scalp. It was better than being cold.

He kept walking.

The sky was growing dark when he grew alert enough to realize he couldn’t just keep walking and started to keep an eye out for an older, easy to steal car. His fingers were so stiff and clumsy it took him three attempts but eventually he got a car and started driving.

His Starkphone began to chime urgently at some point. Clint pulled it out his pocket and looked at it for a long moment. The unknown number rang off and then Natasha was calling.

Clint very nearly answered it on pure instinct. But Natasha was so intrinsically wrapped up with Coulson that he hesitated. If he had been wrong about Coulson was he wrong about Natasha too. He had thought they were friends but Clint clearly had no idea what that meant. 

He knew Natasha thought she had owed him a debt for not following through on her kill order. Since she had rescued him from Loki instead of killing him, that debt had been repaid.

And Natasha had gone off with Steve to destroy SHIELD and rescue her old friend the Winter Soldier. Clint was pretty much an afterthought.

Had Natasha ever even liked him?

Clint dropped the phone out the window.

 

The car stopped when he ran out of gas. Clint got out and started walking.

He switched it up for weeks, hitch-hiking, stealing cars, and buying beaten-up motorbikes. SHIELD, and probably Hydra too, would be looking for him. Neither of them would just let a weapon like Clint slip between their fingers. He didn’t bother trying to plan or pick a destination – he didn’t care where he ended up.

Eventually though the emergency funds sewn into his jacket ran down and he needed slow up. He’d been avoiding cities on instinct, he couldn’t see clearly in cities, too loud, too noisy, too full of people. Now he turned deliberately away from the larger towns the circus had passed through and aimed for the tiny one-stoplight towns that were already half-hidden from the world.

There was always at least one nearby farm that would take on someone willing to work for not much more than room and board. Clint was strong, a decent mechanic, good with animals, could ride okay – could ride standing upside down with his hands on the saddle, not that there was much call for that – he was useful. He turned down all invitations to go hunting though, especially bow-hunting. 

And he never, ever stayed long. Even he learned his lesson eventually.


End file.
